Weekend Ar(t)s answers your questions before seeing Prometheus

Ridley Scott's much anticipated Alien-ish film hits theaters this weekend.

During the weekend, even Ars takes an occasional break from explaining SSDs or trying to understand Flame cheats. Weekend Ar(t)s is a chance to share what we're watching/listening to/reading or otherwise consuming this week.

There's a lot more to see...

Let's not waste any time. Prometheus is in theaters now and demands some of your time. Hesitant? Here's a quick primer on the big questions:

Is it an Alien prequel?

The short answer: no. Prometheus is a predecesor to the Alien franchise but does not come, chronologically speaking, directly before that film. Scott's original intentions (circa early 2000s) were indeed to make it a prequel, but the creative process stalled during the decade. When Scott revisited the project, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof was brought on and rewrote the script to shed prequel status. Now leading up to the film, Ridley Scott's oft-repeated quote has been that the film contains "strains of Alien's DNA."

So do you need to have seen Alien before heading to the theater this weekend? No, but it'll enrich the experience in the way that any smart entity rewards loyal fans (see any self-referential note in season three of Community). Franchise-faithfuls will recognize the Weyland Corporation, wonder why Ripley isn't involved, and hold their breath waiting to see if anything on par with thisbursts onto the screen.

What exactly is "Prometheus?"

It would be like calling Alien, Nostromo. The title refers to the ship our main characters operate throughout the film. Yes, my first reaction was also Greek gods or Nickelodeon cartoons. Sadly neither are involved, though the film definitely raises questions about god-like existences and contains aliens (duh).

Idris Elba is awesome, right?

Well, yes. But he's not the main draw in Prometheus. Elba (you'll have seen him as Luther of Luther or Stringer Bell from The Wire) plays the ship's captain, Janek. He's the most obviously non-scientific member of the crew, in a hoodie most of the time, like a boat captain. You'll get an Elba fix, but the film focuses more on characters portrayed by Michael Fassbender (of Shame fame—he plays David the android) and Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—she plays the film's female lead). Elba even told NY Mag that Scott called and him about the part saying, “Look, this film isn’t about Captain Janek at all. But I want a really good actor to play this part."

Does it all live up to the hype?

Prometheus isn't going to have an Avengers-like opening. Then again, no film before the comic blockbuster ever did. The film is opening with above-average reviews—74 on Rotten Tomatoes—and is expected to gross between $52 and $54 million during open weekend (though Madagascar 3 will rake in more than $60 million—never underestimate the kids).

Major critics are finding ways to praise it as well. Roger Ebert called it "a seamless blend of story, special effects and pitch-perfect casting, filmed in sane, effective 3-D that doesn't distract," while David Edelstein qualified that Prometheus had "practically none of the 1979 original’s visceral punch, but also none of its dumb false scares or stupefying stretches."

For science fiction fans, it's a welcome success after the tankjob that cursed the genre's first major film of the year. It's also refreshing to see a beloved franchise prequel that isn't mailed-in, and has its creators blessing (sorry Alan Moore).

It is a prequel. There's no requirement than a prequel be set right before 'Alien' in the timeline. It's also somewhat disappointing, with major ideas from Alien and Aliens being re-cycled throughout, right down to certain iconic visuals. I won't give it away, but don't go in expecting too much originality. Not a bad movie overall, 7/10 in my book still.

It is a prequel, and a direct one. Just not an immediate one. There is some 30 years between the end of Prometheus and the beginning of Alien.

I thought it was great, it answers what the ship on LV-426 was doing and how things went wrong. It's also a smart enough movie that it doesn't tell you these things unequivocally but lets you work them out to your satisfaction.

That said, the entire time I was waiting for someone to say, "I'm sorry, David, I can't do that," and I went home disappointed

It is a prequel, and a direct one. Just not an immediate one. There is some 30 years between the end of Prometheus and the beginning of Alien.

I thought it was great, it answers what the ship on LV-426 was doing and how things went wrong. It's also a smart enough movie that it doesn't tell you these things unequivocally but lets you work them out to your satisfaction.

That said, the entire time I was waiting for someone to say, "I'm sorry, David, I can't do that," and I went home disappointed

Within context. it would have been David saying that line, which just won't work. I guess if Shaw say that line, it would work and actually be ironic.

On the other hand, is it just me or did someone call Shaw 'Lisbeth' when they head out of the ship the very last time? As Noomi Rapace play Shaw, it kinda bumped me out of the movie narrative for a second. Wonder if they did that on purpose.

I watched it last night also, and have no idea how you gleamed the reasons of the ship's presence on LV-426 in the Alien movie. Prometheus takes place on LV-223, so I must have missed an explanation or nodded off for a moment during the movie.

It is a prequel. There's no requirement than a prequel be set right before 'Alien' in the timeline. It's also somewhat disappointing, with major ideas from Alien and Aliens being re-cycled throughout, right down to certain iconic visuals. I won't give it away, but don't go in expecting too much originality. Not a bad movie overall, 7/10 in my book still.

To be fair, they kinda answered the Space Jockey question and a lot more. When you are tasked to answer old question, there is not as much room for original stuff. At least David isn't anything like Ash.

I watched it last night also, and have no idea how you gleamed the reasons of the ship's presence on LV-426 in the Alien movie. Prometheus takes place on LV-223, so I must have missed an explanation or nodded off for a moment during the movie.

I think @ronelson meant it answered what the ship is for. It didn't answer why it is on LV-426.

I watched it last night also, and have no idea how you gleamed the reasons of the ship's presence on LV-426 in the Alien movie. Prometheus takes place on LV-223, so I must have missed an explanation or nodded off for a moment during the movie.

I think @ronelson meant it answered what the ship is for. It didn't answer why it is on LV-426.

I thought it was a major disappointment. Visually, as always, Scott delivers but the movie suffers from terrible pacing, lots of build up to ideas that are just discarded after their reveal, some very clunky introduction of plot elements and heavy handed handling of ideas around themes that in previous movies (especially Alien and Bladerunner) are handled much more subtly.

I'll probably see it, regardless of the hype. I respect Scott and his film making, even when i don't fully agree with it. Should be worth the watch. The best sci-fi movie I've seen recently is Chronicle.

Caught it last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it throughout, which leaves me slightly dismayed at the hostile reaction I've seen online. But you all know what's Haters gotta do.

That being said, it's a movie that shows the viewer a lot, but explains very little. The origin of the Xenomorphs, and in fact life on earth is presented, but without any character explicitly understanding what they're seeing. It's just another part of a rationale of the Engineers that seems beyond human understanding, which is part of the movie's brilliance and perhaps why it's so polarizing.

The Engineers are motivated by reasons and values too sublime and alien for humans to understand. It shouldn't be surprising that some of the characters act irrationally as a result of the experience, but it seems some people can't stomach that in a film.

I thought it was a major disappointment. Visually, as always, Scott delivers but the movie suffers from terrible pacing, lots of build up to ideas that are just discarded after their reveal, some very clunky introduction of plot elements and heavy handed handling of ideas around themes that in previous movies (especially Alien and Bladerunner) are handled much more subtly.

At the risk of sounding like a movie snob, I'd have to agree. Though I wouldn't call it a major disappointment.

The movie generally suffered from a lack of good story telling and instead relied on visuals. Sadly, this is a problem with a lot of modern movies.

You really shouldn't embed it in an article for those intending to see it.

I avoided (unintentionally) almost all promo material for Prometheus, and as a result really enjoyed it. I'm not an Alien fanboi either. If I had to sum it up in one word: epic.

Lol I (intentionally) avoided all of the promotional material and *didn't* like it so muchI loved the visuals, but the plot was a little too clunkyIt asks too many questions, and doesn't answer any of themand the actions of some of the characters makes no senseI spent much of the movie exclaiming: "You dumbass! wtf are you thinking??"The rest of the audience didn't appreciate that.

I'm hearing rumors that there actually is a lot of material that never made it into the film which should explain some of the huge logical leaps in the filmand I'm sure they'll be re-releasing it in extreme 3d Hologram extended cut version in a few months or blu-ray...

I think it had better ideas and potential than a lot of modern sci-fi, which is why I was so disappointed. Also I don't know if I'd say it relied on the visuals, it certainly told more with visuals than say Alien but I'd think that was due to a better budget or improvements in visual effects.

I called the film "visual elevator music". It wasn't a bad movie. It's just something I watched and I enjoyed. I think the movie lacked a level of emotion, I guess? It's a movie I'd have to see again, eventually. It wasn't cartoony. I never felt like there were any visual effects that tilted me out of the story.

Some of the sexual undertones from Alien are subtly transitioned to Prometheus while others were not. The infected husband of Naomi Rapice. His eyeball looked like a sperm entering an egg in the scene where he's washing his face off. This was also something that stuck out with me in the trailer.

The carrying an alien baby face hugger sort of thing seemed a bit too blunt and literal. The automatic surgery machine and the idea that such an expensive machine wasn't designed for female anatomy, which I thought was strange and maybe was a point to something in the movie I missed.

David was an interesting character because he had the demeanor of Bishop from Aliens with somewhat of a hidden agenda that Ash had in Alien. He wasn't either. Weyland being there actually reshaped the story a bit as the company had a face. David had someone human he was getting orders from directly. It wasn't simply words in a computer terminal. There was no company man. It was the man on top. This movie didn't really establish the bio weapons agenda of Weyland (Yutani), although it was hinted by the armament of bio materials the Space Jockey race had on their ship.

I can see this movie having at least a cult following. It's something I'd add to my library of things I'd casually see again. I think it stands on its own in creative direction you can take the Alien universe along with Scott's original and Cameron's sequel.

The automatic surgery machine and the idea that such an expensive machine wasn't designed for female anatomy, which I thought was strange and maybe was a point to something in the movie I missed.

Pretty sure the machine said it didn't have a female profile loaded when she made her request. It was there to keep Weyland alive. That machine and scene though singlehandedly jarred me out of the pleasant suspended disbelief I was in. I just couldn't accept her radical recovery.

I saw it yesterday, and I think this may be one of the best sic fi films to have come out in the past fifteen years. SPOILERS ahead: That being said, viewers should be prepare for Ridley's oblique interpretation of the Alien mythology. Like any good myth, this film provides deep, satisfying narrative, but doesn't hold every single answer. If you are not used to seeing films that pose provocative questions without answering all of them, well, this may not be for you. This type of prequel is what I wish George Lucas could have done with his own Star Wars mythology.

As a horror film, Prometheus also works extremely well, and what we experienced in Alien as fear of the body, now manifests itself as a fear of technology and invention. Its roots in the Prometheus myth are obvious, and it works for the film. I have been obsessed by the Alien films since I was a kid, and to me, this felt like a deep, satisfying narrative that allowed my imagination to do a lot of wonderful work. That's what a good story should do.

The automatic surgery machine and the idea that such an expensive machine wasn't designed for female anatomy, which I thought was strange and maybe was a point to something in the movie I missed.

It was for Weyland. It was stuck in Vicker's room so the rest of the crew wouldn't see it.

I assumed that the machine was there for Vickers and was part of the notion that she wanted to be completely detached from the crew and be completely sustainable in the event something went wrong (which it did).

It makes sense since a man in such a fragile state (physically and mentally) would need the exacting care of a machine (like the surgery pod and David) to carry out his wishes.

The illusion of a soothing environment from that holographic projection in Vicker's suite style escape pod reminded me of Ripley sitting in front of a projection in the Aliens extended cut.

Vickers dialog with the Prometheus' captain that asked her if she was a robot and her sexuality felt like a reference to a cut scene in Alien where Ripley and Lambert asked each other if they had sex with Ash. They had hint something wasn't right with him. I think Ridley Scott also took out any references to Ripley and Dallas having a casual deep space relationship for the benefit of hardening the characters a bit (although it's alluded to with Dallas' defensive nature with Ripley).

tetsulo wrote:

jedivulcan wrote:

The automatic surgery machine and the idea that such an expensive machine wasn't designed for female anatomy, which I thought was strange and maybe was a point to something in the movie I missed.

Pretty sure the machine said it didn't have a female profile loaded when she made her request. It was there to keep Weyland alive. That machine and scene though singlehandedly jarred me out of the pleasant suspended disbelief I was in. I just couldn't accept her radical recovery.

I didn't understand how someone could run around with a dozen staples in their gut either. If there's a woman on Ars that's run a track meet right after having a c-section, I'd love to hear from them and get their input on the movie's authenticity in that regard.

I watched it last night also, and have no idea how you gleamed the reasons of the ship's presence on LV-426 in the Alien movie. Prometheus takes place on LV-223, so I must have missed an explanation or nodded off for a moment during the movie.

This is such an important distinction to make. They are two different ships. Viewers must remember that. It also opens up even more possibilities about LV-426 in the future. Well done on Scott's part, I thought.

The I didn't understand how someone could run around with a dozen staples in their gut either. If there's a woman on Ars that's run a track meet right after having a c-section, I'd love to hear from them and get their input on the movie's authenticity in that regard.

I watched it last night also, and have no idea how you gleamed the reasons of the ship's presence on LV-426 in the Alien movie. Prometheus takes place on LV-223, so I must have missed an explanation or nodded off for a moment during the movie.

This is such an important distinction to make. They are two different ships. Viewers must remember that. It also opens up even more possibilities about LV-426 in the future. Well done on Scott's part, I thought.

Since it's established in Prometheus that the outer appearance of the space jockey is a fight suit, what's to say that there was an engineer inside the one seen in Alien and Aliens?

My theory is that the space jockey seen in Alien is Shaw, this neatly links the narratives between Prometheus and Alien, while explaining away the plot inconsistencies you have to deal with trying to have only one ship, e.g. the weather differences between LV-223 and LV-426, why there's only one engineer ship in LV-426 when there are multiple on LV-223, the apparent differences in the crash position of the two ships, why the bodies of Weyland, David etc. weren't on the flight deck in Alien, and why the Alien's jockey died from a chest buster when there's nothing to suggest that would happen to Prometheus' jockey.

This then establishes two parallel story-lines in the Alien universe, both start off with the events leading up to Prometheus, what were the engineers doing? What went wrong? One story then takes place on LV-223 with a species of xenomorph born from an engineer, and the other story branches off with Shaw and the ship, involves her getting infected at some point to create a human xenomorph, and then crashing in LV-426.

This explains why there was no other crew on the ship on LV-426 and why it was sending out a warning beacon.

I watched it last night also, and have no idea how you gleamed the reasons of the ship's presence on LV-426 in the Alien movie.

It served the same general purpose, it was just doing it on another planet, or crashed there on it's way (very unlikely in the great emptiness of space).

The space jockey in the ship on LV-426 has a hole in him, so some alien variant punched out through there most likely. And that ship was emitting a stay away warning. So my take is the ship was carrying bioweapons, the pilot got infected somehow, and maybe put the ship down on the planet, then the pilot got chest busted. Ship was more or less in one piece, too.

This type of prequel is what I wish George Lucas could have done with his own Star Wars mythology.

Good point. I felt like Ridley Scott made the Alien universe bigger and more interesting with this movie, whereas Lucas managed (for me anyway) to make the Star Wars universe smaller with episodes 1-3.

I saw it last night and enjoyed it quite a bit, but it could have been much better in my opinion.

The plot started unraveling halfway through, and it was difficult to understand the motivations of the main characters (namely David's). I like movies that make me think and don't spell everything out to the audience (Bladerunner being a great example), but this film did it in such a haphazard fashion that left me a little jaded. I disagree with those that try to defend the lack of character development and irrational behavior of the main figures with the catchall, "Aliens are beyond human understanding and that's why the plot went off the rails". Seems like a lazy excuse for poor storytelling.

I also didn't like the ending with the obvious "The sequel is coming to a theater near you in the near future". I guess it reflects the current trend of milking franchises instead of making great single-sitting movies. I have a similar sentiment to DLC for games.

Finally, I think there were too many tributes to the franchise thrown into the film that seemed to only serve the purpose of letting fans pat each other on the back saying, "Did you get that? That was sooo cool." It was a little too much like an amusement park ride with all the token attractions thrown in.

Overall I enjoyed the movie and would recommend others see it. It's not the best sci-fi film of the last 15 years, but great sci-fi is so hard to come by and this film is pretty good. I was just hoping for a little more.

I saw it last night and enjoyed it quite a bit, but it could have been much better in my opinion.

The plot started unraveling halfway through, and it was difficult to understand the motivations of the main characters (namely David's). I like movies that make me think and don't spell everything out to the audience (Bladerunner being a great example), but this film did it in such a haphazard fashion that left me a little jaded. I disagree with those that try to defend the lack of character development and irrational behavior of the main figures with the catchall, "Aliens are beyond human understanding and that's why the plot went off the rails". Seems like a lazy excuse for poor storytelling.

...

I wondered about David's motivation quite a bit. I think he did a lot of things just to see what happens, that he felt as long as he is not violating Weyland's order, he can do what he wants for the sake of expanding his experience. It's all an experiment to him. I agree with you on character development, especially like Vickers, who was such an underused and underdeveloped character, makes you wonder why she is even in the movie. (Hopefully a director's cut will rectify that.) The Space Jockeys' motivations are still murky at best after the movie, but I don't remember seeing anything in Prometheus that acutely contradicts anything in Alien.

It's strange to hear that this isn't a prequel. The trailers I saw (which were excellent) really made it seem like the setup to Alien.

I'm also wondering what he divergence was and why it would make sense to make it an independent timeline/universe.

It's not an independent timeline/universe, it's in the same timeline/universe. When people say "prequel" they mean "the events that let to the next film," and these events in Prometheus don't lead directly into 1979's "Alien." That's why all the articles & interviews say "it's not a prequel"

Saw this last night at the large IMAX screen here in NYC. I loved it and thought it was an amazing film. Of course, I love SciFi and the Alien series. It absolutely is a prequel to Alien and sets up events that lead to the beginning of that film. If you love the series I don't see how you would be disappointed.

What was great about Alien (and Aliens) was the tight storyline where everything was internally consistent and made sense, and more importantly the characters had believable motivations and development.

***The following is chock full of SPOILERS***

Sci-fi plots are cool when they posit some interesting possibility that could actually happen or be true, such as "humans make androids so realistic we can't tell them from humans", or "aliens seeded all life on earth/some other planet". Prometheus' worst plot failure for me was that it's "interesting possibility" wouldn't even be possible: "aliens seeded the DNA for humans, and the evolutionary link between humans and all the other previous life on that planet is just coincidence!". Even if you allow for super magical aliens that are able to reconcile this issue, the main problem is actually with the scientists in the film who propose the idea. They are supposed to be normal scientists from a few decades in our future. No scientist who understood evolution would even think of such a nonsensical possibility, so when they suggest it you lose all respect for them.

But OK, I was willing to forgive a silly central plot element, but the characters were terrible:

Why didn't the captain care about what was happening with his crew? When he has a map and tracking ability and everyone has cams that record what is going on, why doesn't he rewind to find out what happened to some missing crew? Why did he go have sex while some crew members were in danger? Who the hell were the crew members who were suddenly gung-ho about committing suicide with the captain at the end? What was their motivation?

The 2 scientists the captain should have cared about, why did they go from "scared of an empty lifeless building" to "investigate hissing angry snake-like alien by trying to touch it"?

Why was the Theron's character even in the film at all? What was she there for? What did she do? It seems like the only reason that character existed was to provide a throw-away one-line explanation for why there is a detachable self-contained section of the ship, but the use of that section is pretty irrelevant (those events could just as easily happened elsewhere). Everything else she did could have been done by the captain, and it would have been more interesting if he did.

The android was the only "good" character. Unknown and strange motivations as noted by others above, but acceptable given that he was an android.

The android may have strange motivations for keeping the female lead impregnated, but no one else on the crew would want to be a part of that. Why does no one help her? Why doesn't she ask for help? After she has removed it and is running around covered in blood, why does no one care?

All the other characters excepting the female lead were completely forgettable nobodies. I can still clearly visualise and recall the character of each member of the Alien crew and all the people in Aliens. The only thing I remember about the other Prometheus crew members was that one of them made an utterly pathetic attempt at giving himself some character by making some kind of bet. Then he had no further character development. Then we forgot he existed. Then towards the end of the film he mentions the bet again, like it was some brilliant running joke. Then he dies. Wow.

Basically, there are no "real", rounded, sensible characters in this film. Random people do random things purely in service of the weak plot. "we need to have a character give birth to a facehugger so we see a facehugger at the end of the movie"... "let's impregnate the lead"... "how?"... "have the android do it"... "how and why?"... "he does it by accident with no planning, for no particular reason"... "how does the crew react and how does the facehugger survive once born?"... "that doesn't matter, just ignore that, move along".

All the other characters excepting the female lead were completely forgettable nobodies. I can still clearly visualise and recall the character of each member of the Alien crew and all the people in Aliens. The only thing I remember about the other Prometheus crew members was that one of them made an utterly pathetic attempt at giving himself some character by making some kind of bet. Then he had no further character development. Then we forgot he existed. Then towards the end of the film he mentions the bet again, like it was some brilliant running joke. Then he dies. Wow.

Those two crew members mentioned the bet about 4 or 5 times throughout the movie, and they assisted the captain with clearing the bay when Fifield came back and during the mapping. Vickers was there because her *father* was on board and putting anyone else in that room would have led to questions about why a lifeboat and expensive medical tool were needed, but not allowed to be used by the rest of the crew. The answers were there, you just had to apply yourself. Don't complain about a movie being dumb if you were expecting to turn off your brain.